“Were you there, dear?” she asked.  “Did you see?”

“I was in the next room,” Dolores answered.  “I could not see, but I heard.  I heard him fall,” she added almost inaudibly, and choking.

Inez shuddered and pressed nearer to her sister, leaning against her, but she did not begin to sob again.  She was thinking.

“Can we not help our father, at least?” she asked presently.  “Is there nothing we can say, or do?  We ought to help him if we can, Dolores—­though he did it.”

“I would save him with my life, if I could.  God knows, I would!  He was mad when he struck the blow.  He did it for my sake, because he thought Don John had ruined my good name.  And we should have been married the day after to-morrow!  God of heaven, have mercy!”

Her grief took hold of her again, like a material power, shaking her from head to foot, and bowing her down upon herself and wringing her hands together, so that Inez, calmer than she, touched her gently and tried to comfort her without any words, for there were none to say, since nothing mattered now, and life was over at its very beginning.  Little by little the sharp agony subsided to dull pain once more, and Dolores sat upright.  But Inez was thinking still, and even in her sorrow and fright she was gathering all her innocent ingenuity to her aid.

“Is there no way?” she asked, speaking more to herself than to her sister.  “Could we not say that we were there, that it was not our father but some one else?  Perhaps some one would believe us.  If we told the judges that we were quite, quite sure that he did not do it, do you not think—­but then,” she checked herself—­“then it could only have been the King.”

“Only the King himself,” echoed Dolores, half unconsciously, and in a dreamy tone.

“That would be terrible,” said Inez.  “But we could say that the King was not there, you know—­that it was some one else, some one we did not know—­”

Dolores rose abruptly from the seat and laid her hand upon the parapet steadily, as if an unnatural strength had suddenly grown up in her.  Inez went on speaking, confusing herself in the details she was trying to put together to make a plan, and losing the thread of her idea as she attempted to build up falsehoods, for she was truthful as their father was.  But Dolores did not hear her.

“You can do nothing, child,” she said at last, in a firm tone.  “But I may.  You have made me think of something that I may do—­it is just possible—­it may help a little.  Let me think.”

Inez waited in silence for her to go on, and Dolores stood as motionless as a statue, contemplating in thought the step she meant to take if it offered the slightest hope of saving her father.  The thought was worthy of her, but the sacrifice was great even then.  She had not believed that the world still held anything with which she would not willingly part, but there was one thing yet.  It might be taken